Zomething different

My first event promotion

I was in the office even before the sun climbed into the sky on Saturday morning, trying to tidy up a week of hastily redrawn schedules can be a little on the heavy side. There must be an easier way to accomplish my juggling than this!
I got home just after noon and showered and then fell asleep on the unfolded futon.

Yoshi came over at four and I prepared for us an afternoon meal of chicken, vegetables and rice as she told me the news that I've been selected for a short-list of possible candidates for a recreational hall advertising campaign. I do like a little recreation!
It is nice to know that people have an interest in me even though the reason is solely from the sales aspect. It's good for them (I hope), it's good for the company and it's good for me.

The company car that arrived at 5:45 turned out to be a taxi hired by the company (great start I thought) and the very nice driver who had eyes on the rear-view more often than the road ahead but he managed to get us to the beer hall in one piece. Yoshi and I flashed our ID's at the entrance and we were eventually guided to a staff changing room upstairs. Our outfits, as much as they were, consisted of black bikini tops and then denim top and shorts over it. Next were the huge plastic rings spelling the brand drink "Zima", a hand fan and finally decals stuck on to our arms! Mine kept falling off during the early evening much to the customer's delight who took the opportunity to call after me "Hey, you dropped your Zima!" I soon dispensed with those.

Apparently we were just the tip of the ice cube in a glass of Zima that night. There were, at several locations all around the city, bars and clubs that had been bribed into taking extra stock of Zima and have us promo-girls (did you like how I used the word 'us'?) walk around all evening looking so Zima sexy and tempting the customers into buying it. We were given bottles and obviously in a joking manner they suggested that we don't overdo it but I'm sure there was a serious and compelling instruction in that statement too. I don't know what the big deal was because it tasted like a simple lime and lemon soda with a little kick and I have quite a capacity in my small frame to 'put it away!' I guess that if they knew that then they wouldn't want me eating, or should I say drinking into their profit margins.

If a couple of customers wanted to try Zima and buy one for us too then we accepted and gave them five minutes of our time just chatting and smiling and generally being seen by the whole floor to be having fun in a 'Zima' group. The bottles bought for us usually ended up back in the storage crates and chillers because if we'd tried to drink every bottle that we had been bought then we would have been unconscious on the floor and that simply wouldn't do. I wouldn't even be able to make the excuse of fainting due to first night nerves.

It was a very pleasant evening walking around with a license to be talking to strangers and of course making sure we sold them the idea that Zima is cool. In fact the bottles were so chilled it might have been a good idea to have been given some blue 'Zima gloves' (oh stop complaining!) This was my first outing in a promo and so I was on probation and only getting half scale but I really didn't mind. Just having my foot in the door and living the experience would suffice for my first night. Also having Yoshi as my tutor, my lead and probably also my assessor, made the evening quite perfect for me. All this and getting paid too (even half wage)!

Towards the end of the evening, the bar manager wondered that if, when this promotion was all over, I'd like to have a job working in his bar. I was quite flattered really and thinking 'bar-hostess.' I looked deeply into his mesmerized eyes with my long lashes fluttering and apologized profusely explaining that I was a 'Zima girl' to the bitter end and that zest came with a slice of lemon.
When a lot of drink had been consumed towards the end of the evening and hopefully a lot of Zima's by looking at the stack of empty crates, some of the customers became a little bit naughty and their hands were a little uncontrollable. We simply had to smile and extricate ourselves politely. In one instance, one of the bar security felt the need to come over and ask if we were alright. We hadn't called for him because that was our last resort but it was nice of him to be watching. I guess that was a part of his job too. We nodded and smiled and the offenders simply backed off and gave us room.
After sampling a few bottles of my own I wondered if anyone had noticed that I had swapped the order of the rings on my fingers to spell out the words AMIZ and MIZA (laughs - I'm so naughty)!
"Amiz" quickly became "Ami" when I lost my little 'z'!

I got home, again in a high speed company taxi, just before 1am and sent a text to my sweetie saying it all went well. No doubt she'll ring me at silly O'clock in the morning for all my excited details.
I don't know why I like this song but I do.
Miriya Kato - Why?